~ Unless you live here in Alabama many are not aware that there is even still too much cleanup of debris. Also that insurance companies still have yet to settle claims & write folks their checks. Many Alabamians still after SIX MONTHS, see their lives on hold. ~ JP

“Mind on Tuscaloosa” helps Alabama, country cope with tornadoes

TUSCALOOSA, AL

“There’s days that I get up and I don’t want to go through the day,” Ashley Mims said. “I mean, I don’t want to go on without her.”

A piece of Ashley Mims’ heart has been missing since Wednesday, April 27th. Three days earlier on Easter Sunday she remembers saying goodbye to her daughter, 21-year-old Loryn Brown.

“I can still sometimes feel that hug that I got that last day,” she said. “I can still feel her arms wrapped around me and how hard she squeezed.”

The small Marion County town of Hackleburg took a direct hit from an EF-5 April 27th. The deadly tornado killed 18 residents, and the town’s biggest business was destroyed. ABC 33/40 spoke with city leaders and residents who said the tornado-torn town is slowly coming back to rebuild and reshape its future.

“It’s just hard coming back losing what you had,” said tornado survivor Myrtie Mae Williams. “You’ll never get it back.”

~ Jason Simpson was in Pratt City today. Which is where we took photos firsthand JUST days after they were hit by an F5. This area still shows many signs of the damage. SO many homes not even demolished or rebuilt. We have seen it several times and there has been little progress in this economically stressed area.

Although JUST a few major tornadoes, towns are featured in this post, I will continue to post about other’s as they come through today.

I leave you with one F5 experienced in Cullman County. Here is a story about survival & restoration:

Although we were affected by tornadoes all around us, JUST Piper was one of the most comprehensive sites for videos and reports on our April 27th Tornadoes. JUST put anything in relation to the tornadoes or area in our site search engine if you want to see JUST what Alabamians lived through. ~JP

~ On the sixth month Anniversary of their devastating April 27th tornado, Cordova was hit by an EF4 and now Several tornado damaged buildings on both sides of Main Street are burning.

Part of downtown Cordova is on fire.

Several tornado damaged buildings on both sides of Main Street are burning. Mayor Jack Scott says work crews were burning brush nearby before the fire started. The mayor believes embers blew on to buildings and set the downtown fire.

Firefighters are working to extinguish the flames. An investigation is likely to determine the official cause of the fire.

The newly introduced ‘rogue websites’ bill that has attracted bi-partisan support in the House will force Internet Service Providers to create a list of banned websites and prevent their users from accessing the sites, creating a Chinese-style ‘ban list’ that could easily be abused to silence free speech.

“US lawmakers introduced a bill on Wednesday that would give US authorities more tools to crack down on websites accused of piracy of movies, television shows and music and the sale of counterfeit goods,” reports AFP.

“The Stop Online Piracy Act has received bipartisan support in the House of Representatives and is the House version of a bill introduced in the Senate in May known as the Theft of Intellectual Property Act or Protect IP Act.”

Although the legislation is primarily aimed at foreign websites, it could just as easily be applied to all .com domains.

The most chilling part of the legislation makes it clear that this is about empowering the federal government to create a blacklist of banned websites.

“A service provider shall take technically feasible and reasonable measures designed to prevent access by its subscribers located within the United States to the foreign infringing site (or portion thereof) that is subject to the order, including measures designed to prevent the domain name of the foreign infringing site (or portion thereof) from resolving to that domain name’s Internet Protocol address,” states the bill.

The only difference between this system and the draconian measures currently in place in countries like Iran, China and North Korea, is that the ISP’s would be mandated to enforce the ban list, rather than the websites being blocked via a centralized government hub.

Note that the website only has to be “accused” of doing something the government deems unlawful to be blacklisted, there is no legal process whatsoever.